Plugins & Marketplaces: Package Your Setup

Your setup, installable

Over this course you've built skills, subagents, hooks and MCP configs. A plugin bundles them into one installable unit, so a teammate (or a thousand developers) can get your whole setup with one command. Plugin skills are namespaced (/my-plugin:review), so many plugins coexist without collisions.

Plugin structure

acme-dev-kit/
├── .claude-plugin/
│   └── plugin.json          # manifest: name, version, description
├── skills/
│   └── release-notes/
│       └── SKILL.md         # → /acme-dev-kit:release-notes
├── agents/
│   └── code-reviewer.md     # subagent
├── hooks/
│   └── hooks.json           # same shape as the settings "hooks" key
└── .mcp.json                # MCP servers the plugin provides

{
  "name": "acme-dev-kit",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "Acme's shared Claude Code setup: release notes, a strict reviewer and auto-formatting."
}

Test locally

claude --plugin-dir ./acme-dev-kit

This loads the plugin for one session, with no marketplace needed. Iterate until it works, then run /reload-plugins to pick up changes mid-session.

Marketplaces: distribution

A marketplace is a repo (or folder) with a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json that lists plugins:

{
  "name": "acme-tools",
  "owner": { "name": "Acme Platform Team" },
  "plugins": [
    { "name": "acme-dev-kit", "source": "./plugins/acme-dev-kit", "description": "Shared dev setup" }
  ]
}

Users add the marketplace, then install from it:

/plugin marketplace add acme/claude-plugins
/plugin install acme-dev-kit@acme-tools

/plugin alone opens an interactive menu with Discover, Marketplaces and Installed tabs. The official Anthropic marketplace (claude-plugins-official) is available automatically, so /plugin install commit-commands@claude-plugins-official works out of the box.

Plugin or standalone?

Check your understanding